Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slicer for slicing a material to be sliced, such as a vegetable, fruit or the like, and in particular concerns a slicer capable of desirably adjust a slicing width of the material to be sliced.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as a slicer for use in easily slicing various materials to be sliced, such as vegetables, fruits or the like, into sliced pieces having a desired width, such a slicer has been used in which the material to be sliced is reciprocally moved forward and rearward in the slicing direction so as to slice the material to be sliced by using a slicing blade.
As a conventional slicer, such a slicer has been known which is provided with a frame having a pair of right and left supporting arms, a slicing blade with two ends thereof being secured to the supporting arms, a fixed supporting plate that is placed on the front side of the slicing blade and passed between a pair of right and left frame portions, and a movable supporting plate that is placed on the rear side of the slicing blade, with the slicing width (thickness) of a sliced material width being made adjustable by moving the movable supporting plate in a vertical direction.
As the movable supporting plate of this slicer, a structure has been known in which its two ends are journaled to the paired right and left supporting arms so as to be able to rock in vertical directions (for example, see JP-A No. 2004-338069), and another structure has been known in which it is movable horizontally in vertical directions by a spacer disposed below a movable receiving plate (for example, see JP-A No. 2011-156435).    [Patent Document 1] JP-A No. 2004-338069    [Patent Document 2] JP-A No. 2011-156435
In the case of the above-mentioned former slicer, however, as shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B, a movable supporting plate 91 is positioned so as to be tilted downward in a vertical direction H, with a slicing blade 92 being diagonally disposed relative to a slicing direction S, that is, with a distance between the movable supporting plate 91 and the slicing blade 92 being gradually widened from one of the ends in a width direction W toward the other end; therefore, in the case when a material M to be sliced is long in the width direction W, a problem arises in which deviations occur between a thickness ta of its cut portion a on the one of the end sides in the width direction W of a sliced piece C and a thickness tb of its cut portion b on the other end side.
Moreover, since the slicing blade 92 that is intruded to a material M to be sliced horizontally slices the material to be sliced, a problem arises in which in the case when a material to be sliced is long in a slicing direction S, as shown in FIGS. 8A to 8D, deviations occur in the thicknesses of a sliced piece C before and after the slicing direction S, that is, a thickness tc on the tip side in the slicing direction S of the sliced piece C and a thickness td on the rear side are different from each other.
Furthermore, in the case of the above-mentioned latter slicer, since the movable supporting plate assembled onto the frame is not easily removed from the frame, cut chips of the material to be sliced tend to be caught in a gap between the movable supporting plate and the spacer, or waste water containing soil or the like adhering to the surface of a material to be sliced tends to remain in the gap, with the result that sanitation might become poor as the slicer is used.
In the case of a slicer in which a movable supporting plate made of resin is used, since upon slicing a material to be sliced, the movable supporting plate is deflected downward in the vertical direction by a pressing force exerted onto the material to be sliced, the gap between the slicing blade and the movable supporting plate is widened beyond a predetermined gap between the slicing blade and the movable supporting plate, the sliced pieces tend to become thicker than the intended thickness.
Therefore, in order to slice the material to be sliced with a uniform thickness and also to provide a slicer capable of being used sanitarily, there are some technical problems to be solved, and the object of the present invention is to solve these problems.